6:00 PM – Julie Whitesel Weston: The Good Times Are All Gone Now: Life, Death and Rebirth in an Idaho Mining Town
Elliott Bay Book Co.
The story of how a small town turned into a Superfund site. I think it has something to do with mining, the usual reason in the American West. Of course, I live near a Superfund site that has nothing to do with mining, so what do I know?[LINK]

7:00 PM – Rowan Jacobsen: The Living Shore: Rediscovering a Lost World
University Bookstore U-District
Jacobsen is slightly less alarmist about our wee sweet Olympia oysters, than he was about honeybees. Did you know that honeybees are not native to North America? Olympia oysters are. Perhaps one should keep such things in mind when writing books about THE END OF THE WORLD.[LINK]

Posted in books, daily agenda, events | Comments Off on Readings, signings, and other events vaguely literary for Wednesday, September 30, 2009

It turns out that the Stranger is still looking for a new News Editor. [slog]

Indie darling newlyweds dine at Cafe Presse, which someone interprets as a threat to the vegan credibility of the bride. [chs]

Have $50 an an interest in the future of news? Seattle U has just the conference for you. It’s even cheaper if you happen to be unemployed or a student, the parties probably most likely to benefit from the daylong seminar series. [barrymitzman]

Starting today you can carshare and cause shared cars to honk from your iPhone. [zipcar]

TUESDAY AGENDA: charming Norwegian troubador Sondre Lerche has a pair of shows tonight, a perfect hideaway from the rain. [tripledoor]

Posted in internet | Comments Off on in other blogs: getting back in the habit

This NW film showcase features prizes, parties, and all sorts of cool special events, plus, of course, films from Northwest filmmakers. This year’s festival includes a great variety of short and feature length fiction and documentary films and a special presentation of a historical Seattle film.

The complete schedule is online at NWFF’s Local Sightings site but here are a few of your available choices: Opening night film The Mountain, The River, and the Road by Seattle’s Michael Harring tells the story of Jeff whose journey to Austin begins with his parents kicking him out of the house. His friend Tom, who has his own issues, goes along. The trip doesn’t work out quite the way they planned it and next thing you know Jeff’s in Kernville, California, idly hanging out at a motel where he meets a woman with a chainsaw.

On Saturday, Seattle’s Jennifer Maas presents a work in progress – Wheedles Grove. Contrary to what far too many seem to believe, Seattle’s music scene didn’t start in the 1980s–it’s much older than that, dating back to long before even our oldest living citizen was even born. Along the way there have been some interesting developments of ‘scene’, like back in the late 1960s when Seattle’s thriving soul scene was just inches away from bursting on the national scene with groups like Black on White Affair, The Soul Swingers and Cold, Bold & Together. Timing is everything, though, and it wasn’t great for these bands which fell back into obscurity until the early 2000s when local collector DJ Mr. Supreme approached the label Light in the Attic about releasing a compilation album.

American Collectors plays on Monday, a documentary that examines the relationships between people and the objects they collect. I have friends who are collectors–you may know some, or you may be one–and even so I’ve never entirely figured out what makes a person want to own a whole bunch of, say, KISS memorabilia or salt shakers or stuffed tarantulas or whatever it is that people collect (matchbooks, old stereo equipment, etc.) American Collectors can’t hope to provide the full answer, probably because there really isn’t a simple cut-and-dried explanation. It does, however, quite effectively tell a fascinating tale of some of the people who like to collect, what they like to collect, and even a bit of why they like to collect. It’s not just about having the things, it turns out.

Sabrina Lee from Montana considers rural American hip hop in Where You From? a movie about the hip hop scene miles and miles from its urban roots. What’s hip hop sound like when it comes from Bozeman or Livington, Montana, or Fortuna, California, instead of big cities like NYC, Chicago, LA, or even Seattle? Lee answers that question by presenting three young men for whom music is a salvation and a driving force in small towns that offer just as many mean streets as the big city.

Other events include the lively opening night party on Friday, a free program of animated works by the students of Lukas Allenbaugh’s Clay Animation Network classes on Saturday, a conversation on Sunday with Seattle historian Paul Dorpat about Seattle in 1969, a Sunday evening program (also free) of locally produced music videos, a variety of shorts programs and much more.

The Most Serene Republic, who played a heck of a show opening for Grand Archives last week (a bunch of my photos are on backbeatseattle), had a pretty bad time after their performance in Vancouver.

Following a show at the Biltmore, they had an ample amount of gear stolen. It’s always sad when good people have their stuff taken from them, but if you had seen the way that lead singer / lead trombonist gleefully danced around the stage with that horn of his, you’d know that the sting of theft was all the more bitter. If you happen to see a bunch of gear (acoustic & electric guitars, Jiggs Whigham 2102L King Trombone, pedals, and flight cases) showing up at near the border pawn shops, please get in touch with Arts & Crafts to bring the lawbreakers to justice and the equipment back to the band’s loving embrace. (full list of stolen gear and contact info after the jump)

7:00 PM – Ryan Boudinot: Misconception: A Novel
University Bookstore U-District
I am looking forward to reading this book, but I hate titles that end with “A Novel.” No, really? Finding it in the fiction section apparently is not clue enough, I need “A Novel” writ large on the cover and spine?[LINK]

7:30 PM – Glen Chilton: The Curse of the Labrador Duck: My Obsessive Quest to the Edge of Extinction
Town Hall Seattle
Winner of this month’s “Most Awesome Title” Award. I want to see Chilton’s collection of 55 stuffed ducks. Hey, he’s Canadian: I’m sure if I stopped by unannounced one day, he’d totally invite me in for tea and duck-gaping.[LINK]

7:30 PM – Lauren Weber: In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue
Elliott Bay Book Co.
I’m fascinated by the new interest in frugality, savings, and conservation, really. Suddenly, I’m not a cheap-skate, TV-less freak of nature: I’m thrifty and admirable. How charming.[LINK]

8:00 AM – Diane Ackerman: Dawn Light: Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day
Elliott Bay Book Co.
I’m sure that having a morning presentation about a book on the joys of dawn is a lovely idea, but I have to get up at O’Dark-Thirty to catch a bus for work. And on a Monday, no less. Wah![LINK]

7:30 PM – David Byrne w/ Others: Bicycle Diaries
Town Hall Seattle I’ve been eagerly awaiting this book, but tickets are $30! If you have the dosh, go see Mr. Byrne be his interesting self in re: bicycles.[LINK]

Posted in books, daily agenda, events | Comments Off on Readings, signings, and other events vaguely literary for Monday, September 28, 2009

Israeli artist Guy Ben Nur makes Ikea living rooms look like foreign lands we enter into. In his film “Stealing Beauty,” now playing at Western Bridge, he comments on the stark reality of remaining an immigrant in your own bedroom (your bed frame designed in Sweden, assembled in China, and sold just off I-5). But Guy Ben Ner isn’t content to simply satirize the American dream home. He also weaves in Marxist speeches, hilarious camera faux-paus, and visual gags into his work (check out the giant price tags and alien-like stock photos in the picture frames). The results transcend typical consumerist critiques.

Now playing at Western Bridge as part of a series of installations on the relationships between parents and children.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Now Playing at Western Bridge

12:00 PM – Carola Dunn: Sheer Folly
Seattle Mystery Bookshop
#18 in a series set in the ’20s. Adorable.[LINK]

5:00 PM – Robert L. Bergman: Mindless Psychoanalysis, Selfless Self Psychology and Further Explorations
Elliott Bay Book Co.
“Plain spoken and deeply personal yet theoretically sophisticated essays on questions that matter to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and anyone with a serious interest in human nature. Written with humor and grace, [this book] takes us on a remarkable exploration of the author’s own psyche as well as our own. Dr. Bergman’s first book is a gift, a deep meditation about what our field and, more importantly, about the mysteries of being human.” – Daniel Jacobs, M.D.[LINK]

7:30 PM – William Dewey: Without a Soul to Move
Elliott Bay Book Co.
Another post-9/11 novel, set in Denver, by a New Zealand-based writer.[LINK]

*

Sunday, September 27, 2009

2:00 PM – June Cotner: Dog Blessings
Barnes & Noble University Village
“Calling all Pet Owners and Lovers — Enjoy a special visit with author June as she shares her wonderful book of dog stories and blessings — you’ll laugh, cry and bond with all our guests and their pets!” –B&N[LINK]

7:00 PM – Colin Beavan: No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process
University Bookstore U-District
Hopefully this will turn out to be better than My Suburu, but I don’t know yet. Have you read it? Fill me in! (Not that My Suburu was terrible, it just wasn’t as interesting as anticipated. Also, the author of My Suburu thought he was funnier than he actually is. Tragic, really.)[LINK]

7:30 PM – Charles P. LeWarne: The Love Israel Family: Urban Commune, Rural Commune
Elliott Bay Book Co.
The local historian is at Elliott Bay to promote his book about a bunch of people who didn’t much believe in promoting things.[LINK]

7:30 PM – Jason Whitmarsh: Tomorrow’s Living Room
Open Books
The poet will read from his first full-length collection, which won the 2009 May Swenson Poetry Award from Utah State University Press.[LINK]

Posted in books, daily agenda, events | Comments Off on Readings, signings, and other events vaguely literary for Friday, September 25, 2009